Our little town is turning into a ghost town!
Warning, swearing.

Prime Shop to Let

Prime shop to let
As I walk through this ghost town centre
Prime shop to let
Prime shop to let.
Arrogant
As though they have the monopoly
Over the other shops
Who were once prime
Once to let
Now buckling under the weight of a money sucking landlord
And saying fuck you to Amazon Prime and the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Prime shop to let
To let
Toilet
That always amused me as a kid.
As though the empty walls were vessels for the shit that hit the fan
When the profits plummeted
And the game was up
And shop doors shut
And shop doors shut

And they are shutting
And they are shutting
In Scunthorpe.
Faster than the council can raise the council tax
Faster than the homeless’ belongings are confiscated by the police
Faster than the shoplifter’s legs when the shopkeeper gave chase
Faster than a line of coke up a druggy’s nose.
Faster than you can spell the cunt in Scunthorpe.

You can hear the rattle of the grim reaper’s bones
As he loiters with his scythe
Waiting, waiting
Chalk bone fingers cracking gleefully
Waiting, waiting
As the death bells knoll
and austerity takes its toll
and retail is just another rag doll
that the voodoo government have stuck their pins in
that the voodoo government have tossed around
like they don’t give a shit.
Because this is Scunthorpe and not Sandringham.

Scunthorpe
You may as well become a dot com
for the doors are shutting
the doors are shutting
and we don’t want any more charity shops
and even the poundshops aren’t pulling in the punters.
It’s all strolling around in your second hand coat
with your greasy kebab and your lottery ticket
and hoping you’ll get the bonus ball
when you’ll celebrate with a bottle of cheap Prosecco from Aldi
and a smiling photo in the Scunthorpe Telegraph.
Even the paper used to be nightly
But there’s only enough news for one week now.
And its always the same news. Always the same.

Prime shop to let.
Prime shop to let.
Prime town to let.

It’s sad.

© 2019 Sarah Drury